I thought I would share my thoughts on my feeding journey through my horseís life. As he has changed grains many time. So here we go. A little background on him, he is a 14 year old Arabian gelding who is a western and driving horse. However he is mostly an all-round horse. He is around 800-900 LBS. He is at moderate work at this time due to the show season and is ridden or driven for around a hour a day with trotting and canter work, 4-5 times a week. So here is what he is been on

Off brand of Senior. It was a great buy as it had everything I wanted and the price was just right. At the time it was $18. He was on that for around 2 or 3 years. Then the price jumped to $23. So it was time to switch.
He was then moved to a new boarding area. So I switched him to Purina Senior. It was about the same price around $18 He did very well on it and I liked it a lot. However itís price jumped up as well. Back to the drawing board.
I then switched him to Purina Strategy. However he did not like it much. Never wanted it all the time. I thought maybe I got a bad batch of grain as normally he it sucks up his grain. It was $16 at the time. Time to switch
Then I tried Purina Healthy Edge. At the time it was $15. It was new at the time and I guess they wanted people to try it out as the price was so low. He loved this grain, and the price was just right. I thought I had found my grain for life. His coat looked great he was nice and lean and looked great. However the price went from $15 to $24 in less than 6 months. Time for a change
Then I started to look into Nutrena. We have a lot of feed stores that carry it, I did some looking into it and thought I would give it a try. So the first one I picked was Safe Choice Original. It was at $20 at the time and was great. This was just right, for me. I could afford it and It was easy to find. My horse liked it and he enjoyed his grain again. This was the grain I was feeding for some time till just the other day. Like all ways the price went up to $24 plus tax. I loved this one out of all the grains.
Now for my new grain, Nutrena was having a deal of buy two get 1 free bag of grain of their new triumph grain line. Not all the stores carried all the Triumph brand. So I went with the one that most of them had, the senior. At $17 it looks to be a great buy. Its for people who are on a budget and cant afford a large amount of money on grain like I am. With hay prices the way they are grain was getting harder and harder to afford, but I knew he needed it to fill in any holes that are empty. I have just started to switch him over to this new grain and yet to see what it has done. However with all the reviews I have read it sounds to be a good deal. In the future if he does well and my stores carry more selection of the Triumph line I may switch him over to the 12% protein one.

So to sum it all up here is what I liked about each grain line
Purina
Has a large selection of grain, however finding purina horse feed is a lot harder to find. Most stores do not carry it and I only know of two stores that carry it in my area and if I have to travel I cant find it any place but in my area at the two feed stores. Most of the feed he liked. Got a little picky with a few of types of grain. Most of the time the price was just right. However it jumped in price way to fast.

Nutrena
I have now been feeding this grain for around I would say 3 years or so. I will never switch back to purina. I like Nutrena a lot. They have a lot of grain selection out there as well and I can find the grain in just about any feed store. Never had a bad batch with them. I love that most of the grains have biotin in them. A lot of the purina does not. I have seen better coat, hooves and over all look of my horse with Nutrena.

You do tend to get what you pay for, and while these feeds may well be fine for your particular horse, both Nurina & Putrena are not fixed ingredient feeds, which means they use the cheapest ingreds at the time & mix & match. I think most of us are on tight budgets, but I personally prefer to pay extra if need be, to feed a good product.... which is often one that you need to feed less of for same value, so not so much more expensive after all.

We don't feed a lot of grain, but we fed Nutrena products for many years and were very happy with them. When we bought are current farm, we only changed because we're now close to a local mill that produces a very nice performance mix, we like to support local farmers, and it's actually a couple $$s less than the big name brands.

On the sixth day, God created the Quarter Horse.
On the seventh day, he Painted the good ones.

If your horses are working well, looking well and eating up then you should stick with what you are doing
I've been feeding Sentinel senior for a few years now to all of mine, topping up individually with beet pulp, hay stretcher pellet and rice bran as & when needed but I've got worries about the fact that it has added molasses in it and my horses don't need extra sugar or energy (they already have that in bucket loads) so I'm going to try switching to Triple Crown Lite but that's a pain for me as Blue Seal who deliver my shavings don't stock it and Tractor Supply which is a hop and a jump from the supermarket also don't which means I have to make a special trip to an Agway
If its worth it then I'll do it - buy in a months supply at a time I suppose

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